Focus

Abstract Art, Too, Can Help Explain the Scriptures. A Letter by Giuseppe Betori

The archbishop and secretary of the CEI writes to www.chiesa to defend the new Lectionary for the Sunday Masses, illustrated by contemporary painters. "It is the tearing down of a wall, the overcoming of a lack of dialogue between today's art and the Church"

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, March 3, 2008 – The dispute over the new Lectionary for Sunday and feast day Masses published by the Italian bishops' conference has been enriched with an important new contribution.

The dispute concerns the evaluation of a decision rightly described as "courageous" by the same people who made it: the decision to illustrate, in the Lectionary, the pages of the Sacred Scriptures read each Sunday in the churches with works by contemporary artists, with their more or less figurative, more less abstract styles, which are certainly unusual for a liturgical book.

The new contribution to the dispute is from archbishop Giuseppe Betori, secretary general of the CEI.

Betori is the person who has been more involved than anyone else in planning and realizing the project of the new Lectionary. It is natural, therefore, that he felt obliged to respond to the criticisms expressed three days ago on www.chiesa by professor Pietro De Marco.

The contribution from archbishop Betori is in the form of a letter, addressed to the editor of this website after its swift composition on the same day that www.chiesa published the article entitled: "The Pro's and Con's of the New Liturgical Lectionary. Two Experts Go Head to Head," with the two sides of the argument represented by Fr. Timothy Verdon and professor De Marco.

In the letter, Betori maintains that the initiative of the new Lectionary, despite its criticisms and rejections, nevertheless "represents for many contemporary artists the tearing down of a wall, the overcoming of a lack of dialogue with the Church."

And he announces that the Italian bishops' conference is preparing "a small pamphlet to explain the works and their connection to the texts, which we will try to distribute widely, especially among priests."

Here is the complete text of the letter :

A service to the faith through the visual arts

by Giuseppe Betori

Dear Sandro Magister,

I have always followed with interest your website "www.chiesa," and I could not help but notice the interest with which you are following the response to the new Lectionaries in the Italian Church. I thank you in a particular way for this attention and for the fairness that you have demonstrated, in that this can constitute valuable assistance for understanding the meaning of decisions that, precisely because they are innovative, must be supplemented.

This gratitude is obviously extended to those who have competently sought to evaluate the outcome of a decision for which acceptance is not gained easily, like that of accompanying the text of the biblical readings in the Lectionary with a few panels entrusted to contemporary artists. I refer in particular to His Excellency Gianfranco Ravasi (and to his article that appeared in "il Sole 24 ore" on Sunday, February 10), Fr. Timothy Verdon, and Professor Pietro De Marco.

Permit me to add to these thanks a few considerations that I feel are urgent.

First of all, this is not the first time that the Italian Bishops' Conference has attempted to engage with artistic production. The 1995 catechism for adults of the Italian Church, "La Verità vi farà liberi [The truth will make you free]" (ten years before the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) presented for each chapter the reproduction – in full form, followed by individual details – of a work of art commenting on the truths of the faith presented in the chapter, adding on the last page a few lines of artistic-catechetical interpretation of the work. The works reproduced span all centuries, from the catacombs to contemporary painting, and represent all of the Italian regions. This experience bore fruit in an enduring attention to the world of art, one example of which is the decision to create in the newspaper "Avvenire" a monthly feature on these questions, "Luoghi dell'Infinito [Places of the infinite]," which has acquired a noteworthy authoritativeness in this field.

In "Luoghi dell'Infinito" – on pages 4-5 of issue number 114, published in January of this year – I was able to express my point of view on the foundations and aims of presenting panels by contemporary authors as commentary on the biblical readings in the new Lectionary.

Without repeating what I wrote on that occasion, I feel that it is urgent to clarify a couple of things, in dialogue with the assertions by Professor De Marco, making public a few considerations that I have already presented to him in a brisk exchange of letters, for which I thank him, in that I welcome the demonstration of seriousness that he has recognized in our cultural operation (In the light of this exchange of letters, I do not agree with what you write at the beginning of your latest article, where you affirm that De Marco "severely criticizes both the artists and the patrons." It seems to me instead that De Marco does not contest the solid foundation of the operation, although he does express criticisms of some of its results).

The first point concerns the distinction between art for veneration and art for interpretation and understanding.

To the first category belong, above all, the altarpieces, but also the many other ways in which the sacred is proposed for the veneration of the believer, from paintings intended for worship and prayer to devotional images. Here, without a doubt, there applies the need for recognizability that De Marco seems to attribute solely to a strongly iconic, figurative art, although not necessarily one historically fixed in its forms, otherwise we would have to throw away much of the Italian sacred art of the Middle Ages and after, especially when the figures of the sacred events are depicted in clothing or settings contemporary to the artist, this being a method that art has often used to express the perennial relevance of the message of the sacred text.

But in the case of the panels in the new Lectionary, the purpose of these is to suggest through images the meaning that the text proclaims in words. If, then, I do not need to foster an attitude of devotion or prayer, but rather to promote understanding, I maintain that other artistic languages can also be helpful, in addition to the iconic, which nevertheless is not lacking among the panels in the Lectionary.

I would even go so far as to emphasize how certain pages from the prophets or the letters of Saint Paul can receive special help precisely from non-figurative languages, in presenting truths that are not simply narrative. And it cannot be taken for granted that the abstract or the weakly iconic necessarily correspond to the Indefinite, and therefore to the Negative. They can, instead, also indicate a surplus of Meaning that no comprehension is able to contain fully.

A second consideration concerns the judgment of non-pertinence that De Marco expresses in regard to some of the panels, and I refer in a particular way to the one by Valentino Vago, placed in the context of the Mass for Christmas Day.

Here De Marco observes that an abstract painting cannot speak of the Nativity, in that it is unable to express the central nucleus of this, which is precisely that of the invisible God becoming flesh. This observation would be pertinent if the matter at hand were the mystery in its totality, instead of a particular interpretation of it. But the panels of the Lectionary do not illustrate a feast or a mystery of the faith, but rather seek to express in the language of lines and colors the profound meaning of a specific biblical reading or of one passage in particular.

In this case, Valentino Vago is trying to transmit the meaning of the gospel for Christmas Day, which is the prologue of the Gospel of John, where the incarnation is presented in part as the eruption of the light that overcomes the darkness. And this is precisely what Vago's work says, and effectively, in my view. It is no accident that the index page for the artistic works never gives a title for these, but only a reference to the biblical passage. Not that the works cannot be given a title – and they probably will have titles eventually – but in the context of the Lectionary these respond to no logic other than the understanding of a text, and it is only in this connection that they should be judged.

Dear Magister, what I have written to you is not meant to defend at all costs an operation that has its limitations and incongruities. On the other hand, we have noticed that our initiative has represented for many artists something like the tearing down of a wall, the overcoming of a lack of dialogue, which cannot be bridged over the span of a few months and through a single, although important, attempt. Nor are we insensitive to the difficulties that this new approach in relation to the biblical text and contemporary art can generate for the sensibilities of many, above all for those who are less accustomed to contact with the artistic world of today.

For this reason, I can notify you that a short pamphlet is being prepared to explain the works and their connection to the texts, which we will try to distribute widely, especially among priests. We ask all for the patience to walk together with the Church in a dialogue between faith and culture that is intended to characterize our presence as Catholic Italians in our time, and that certainly cannot exclude art. By walking together, correcting each other according to our various sensibilities – and for this I thank all who participate in this debate – we will be able to reach higher and more widely shared results, remembering that in the end what counts is rendering a service to the faith, through deeper understanding – using all languages, including that of the visual arts – of God, who speaks to us in his sacred Scriptures.

I thank you again for your attention and openness, and extend to you my warm regards.

+ Giuseppe Betori

Rome, February 29, 2008

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The illustration at the top of this page is a detail from the cover of the Lectionary. The artist is Mimmo Paladino.

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The website of the Italian bishops' conference, of which Archbishop Giuseppe Betori is secretary general: